puter help (again) pls

[historian]

I had 15 worms and could not get rid of all of them no matter what i did - resorted to low level format and am now re installing xp - it is veeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyy slow which probably means i still have a worm in memory!!! How do i get rid of this???? Hate puters!!!

[bemildred]

1. Linux, Mac, FreeBSD.

Basically anything but Microsoft OSs will remove the problem
more of less permanently. Not using IE/Outlook helps a lot
too, and close all those open file and print shares, they are
a favorite with the script kiddies.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

2. weird

so you formated you hard drive and are installing everything from scratch? i doubt a worm would still be a problem after a complete format?

[ET Awful]

3. Ummm. . . .

If you've powered off the machine and reformatted the hard drive, there's no way you still have a worm in memory, it's impossible.

The slowness is probably due to the fact that you haven't installed all the requisite drivers and so forth yet.

Basically though, the RAM in your machine can't save information unless it has power to it, thus, if the power has been turned off to the computer, no worm can reside in memory.

If you have formatted the hard drive, there's no way there is still a worm on the hard drive.

[MichaelHarris]

5. There is if

they used a boot disk that was infected to boot up before the reinstall of Windows. My guess is SmartDrive isn't enabled.

[historian]

7. smart drive

you are right it is disabled but the bios is grayed out and i cant enable the thing!! someone told me to do a bio flash but i havent a clue how to do that.

[MichaelHarris]

8. don't do that yet

how old is your computer?

[historian]

10. its an amd 2400 not too old

[MichaelHarris]

9. before we do that lets gather some information

flashing the BIOS incorrectly can lead to creating a doorstop. Lets make sure you need it. XP does take longer to install. How are you installing it? From a boot disk I presume. How long is file copy taking?

[historian]

11. xp from disc

been going for almost 2 hours now - still copying files is at 65%

[MichaelHarris]

12. it is pretty new

I don't think you should flash the bios unless something really goofy is going on. I'm kinda thinking your computer is like a Dell or Gateway or some other name brand. They sometimes make changes in the BIOS hard. 2 hours is to long but I think its a SmartDrive deal. If you have the time the steps after file copy will go faster. Did you format and then reinstall? Is this a full XP cd or a restore CD from the computer manufacture?

[historian]

13. full xp disc

[MichaelHarris]

14. how far along now?

lets let it finish then I'll hook you up with a good free anti virus. Norton is just to intrusive and destructive.

[alfredo]

4. Get a good firewall, keep your computer AV software up to date, and do

not connect to the internet. ;) Then take a picture of Ashcroft, tape it to the monitor, then with great force, apply a 9lb hammer to image.

Staying away from IE and Outlook will help. Closing all ports not needed for basic internet use is a good idea.

I do like the suggestions by the first reply, Linux, BSD, and OSX are not big targets and are much more secure out of the box than MS products.


BTW, there are now e-mail virii that need on interaction from the victim, so it is not always the fault of the user when the machine is infected by some nasty bug.


Good luck.

[hexola]

6. HEAT? - Clean your case...Check CPU speed.

I see more "broken" computers that need nothing more than a internal dusting...dust builds up on the CPU heat sink and cases all sorts of odd behaviour...including slowness...

Also - Check your CPU speed. Make sure your BIOS is still set properly...some BIOSes allow you to specify your CPU speed...a dead battery can result in a "default" or lowest setting...

[bearfan454]

15. Check these out !

Adaware is free from:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com

A pretty good free firewall is at:

http://www.zonelabs.com Zonealarm is the name of it.

We use Norton Systemworks here. It does okay.

A free popup blocker is at:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/browse/0,cat,1443,sortIdx,1,pg,1,00.asp

I hope these help you out. We had browser hijackers, registry files infected bad, 9 trojans, and an optimize.exe file that kept launching a 2nd Windows explorer every 2 minutes eating up all the ram. We have 256k DD and we couldn't even open up My Computer. We use Widows 2000 Professional. I didn't like XP, so I put this OS in instead.